In an episode of Nathan Fielder’s Nathan for You, he once convinced a haunted house to try a gimmick that it starts off normal, but halfway in the staff and management freak out that one of the staff accidentally touched a guest, pulls them aside out of the haunted house into normal lighting, and a whole biohazard suit team and ambulance has to quarantine the guest for a bit in a series of escalating interactions that they’ve contracted some highly contagious and deadly disease, before they reveal that it was all part of the haunted house.
Then a real lawyer is waiting at the end asking if they want to sue for emotional distress, because Nathan Fielder wants the haunted house to drum up publicity that it was so scary that they’ve been sued for it.
The humor mainly comes from overly elaborate execution of fundamentally simple ideas, so it’s usually pretty easy to summarize, even if the sheer amount of effort involved is so far outside the realm of plausible (or cost effective).
The amount of effort that went into the Dumb Starbucks store, or the Michael Richards impersonator leaving a $10,000 tip, were mind bogglingly intricate ways to execute fundamentally simple big picture plans.
His current show, The Rehearsal, really leans into that dynamic, too.
In an episode of Nathan Fielder’s Nathan for You, he once convinced a haunted house to try a gimmick that it starts off normal, but halfway in the staff and management freak out that one of the staff accidentally touched a guest, pulls them aside out of the haunted house into normal lighting, and a whole biohazard suit team and ambulance has to quarantine the guest for a bit in a series of escalating interactions that they’ve contracted some highly contagious and deadly disease, before they reveal that it was all part of the haunted house.
Then a real lawyer is waiting at the end asking if they want to sue for emotional distress, because Nathan Fielder wants the haunted house to drum up publicity that it was so scary that they’ve been sued for it.
Jesus Christ, I didn’t think it was possible to see a whole episode of the show within 30 seconds of reading.
The humor mainly comes from overly elaborate execution of fundamentally simple ideas, so it’s usually pretty easy to summarize, even if the sheer amount of effort involved is so far outside the realm of plausible (or cost effective).
The amount of effort that went into the Dumb Starbucks store, or the Michael Richards impersonator leaving a $10,000 tip, were mind bogglingly intricate ways to execute fundamentally simple big picture plans.
His current show, The Rehearsal, really leans into that dynamic, too.